Justice
by Calico
Summary: From a challenge: Neville's reaction at the end of GoF. How does he feel about Mad-eye Moody actually turning out to be Barty Crouch Jnr, one of the people convicted of the attack on his parents?


Challenge fic: **Neville's reaction at the end of GoF. How does he feel about Mad-eye Moody actually turning out to be Barty Crouch Jnr, one of the people convicted of the attack on his parents? Is there anything he could have done to stop it? No conditions.**

_Justice_

Calico calico321yahoo.com

Rating: G

The last week at Hogwarts had been the longest of Neville Longbottom's life.

He, like the rest of the student body, had been shocked by the death of Cedric Diggory at the last task of the Triwizard Tournament. Though he hadn't known Cedric personally, he'd seen the way he'd played Quidditch and how well he'd done during the previous tasks, and though it pained him to admit it, Neville had secretly been routing for Cedric to win over his housemate.

But it all came to a crashing halt when Harry Potter had returned from parts unknown with Cedric's dead body. Rumors flew – some even surmised that Harry had killed him – but they didn't know officially the cause of death until Dumbledore's announcement at the Leaving Feast. And yet that wasn't the worst.

"Did you hear about Professor Moody?" Ginny Weasley had gasped, racing into the Gryffindor common room the evening of the last task after Harry's mysterious return. Neville was huddled in and armchair in the corner all by himself while the other students milled about chattering in nervous whispers, trying to make sense of the senseless.

"What?" Dean Thomas asked.

All eyes and ears were on her. "I just talked to Ron. Moody wasn't Moody after all." A confused buzz of questions filled the air as everyone tried to decipher her words. She motioned for quiet before continuing. Neville slipped out of his chair and crept forward to hear better. "It was Polyjuice Potion. Moody's been kept in the bottom of an enchanted trunk since before school started."

"Then who was teaching us all year?" Colin Creevey asked with wide eyes. His brother Dennis stood beside him solemnly.

Ginny looked around at all the faces before she answered. "It was Barty Crouch, Jr. His father worked for the Ministry, the one that was here for the first task."

Neville felt a ringing in his ears and became dizzy. "Careful there, mate," Seamus cried as he tipped to the side.

Neville managed to right himself and asked in a croaking voice, "What's happened to him?"

"Well, Ron said that Fudged ordered the Dementor's Kiss. His body is still alive, but the rest of him is as good as dead." The murmurs in the room rose again as the students processed the new information.

Somehow Neville was able to get through the next week. A normally quiet, absent-minded boy, nobody noticed that he appeared more detached than usual. He barely heard Professor Snape call him an addlebrained fool or the jokes Malfoy and his cronies made without even attempting to cover them.

At the feast they all toasted Cedric's memory and Harry's bravery, but Neville couldn't keep his eyes off the head table. The real Mad-Eye Moody had been invited to sit in and watched the Hall with great apprehension. Neville kept thinking about the day in class when the man who was not Moody taught them about the Unforgivable Curses.

The sun rose and shined brightly through his bedroom window. Neville stretched and stared at the ceiling above. He could hear voices below, his grandmother and uncle no doubt. After picking him up and King's Cross the night before, they had returned home where Neville had been quizzed about his year at school. Not gossip about the exciting events that had occurred, but about his schoolwork. They were always so concerned that he was learning at an appropriate rate. Gran was always disappointed at his failure to comprehend simple potions, but she was abated with his high marks in Herbology.

Afterwards he had retired early and went straight to bed. Now that he'd awoken and the bright summer day waited outside, he stood up and stretched the kinks out of his back. Then he bent down slid aside a piece of the skirting board to reveal a secret compartment. Inside was small box that he pulled out and set up on his bed.

Sitting down next to the box, Neville opened the lid slowly. Several folded pieces of parchment lay inside. He pulled them out one by one, revealing clipped articles from _The Daily Prophet_. Gran didn't know he had these, and she would probably skin him alive if she found them, but to Neville they were very important.

Flipping through them, eyes avoiding the pictures of his parents, Neville found the name – Bartemius Crouch, Jr., arrested with Bellatrix and Rudolfus Lestrange, charged with using the Cruciatus Curse on Alice and Frank Longbottom, sentenced to life at Azkaban prison. He supposedly died there not long after sentencing.

He was supposed to be dead.

Neville closed his eyes.

_"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"_

He had known.

_"Your name's Longbottom?"_

Crouch had known who he was, tortured that spider in front of him. Neville squeezed his eyes shut. How could he not have seen it? How could he have not seen the face of his parents' torturer in the professor's eyes? If only he had figured it out, he could have saved Cedric and put Crouch back in Azkaban where he belonged.

"Neville! Neville Longbottom, you had better not still be in bed at this hour! Your breakfast is getting cold!" Gran's shrill voice rose up from the bottom floor to shake him out of his thoughts.

"I – I'll be right down, Gran," he called in response, quickly gathering up the pages and stuffing the box back into the cubby hole. He dressed and went downstairs. Gran sat alone at the dining room table, reading _The Daily Prophet_. Neville tried to catch a peak at the front page, expecting news of You-Know-Who's return, Moody's imposter, or Cedric's death to still be on topic, but the main article focused on Gringotts opening a new branch in Zimbabwe.

Neville sat down in front of the bowl of porridge that had been set out in front of him and ate quietly. The whole house suddenly seemed too quiet. His thoughts ran to the box upstairs, to the man who had taught him all year. If only he had closure. Neville cleared his throat.

"What is it?" Gran asked, peering over the top of the paper.

"I was just thinking if maybe we could," he paused and coughed. "If we could go see Mum and Dad?"

"Why?" she inquired sharply. "You've never requested to visit your parents before."

"Well, I am now. Is it alright?"

Her beady eyes narrowed as she regarded him looking for some ulterior motive. "Very well. We can go into London this afternoon. But not until your room is clean. Understood?"

"Yes, Gran."

He finished his breakfast quickly and returned to his room. He unpacked his trunk and set Trevor in the small glass bowl where the toad was supposed to live during the summer, though he was more often than not found elsewhere in the old house.

At quarter past eleven, Neville and Gran stood before the fireplace. "St. Mungo's," she called out loudly, tossed a handful of Floo powder into the flames, and then walking through them, disappeared from sight. Neville followed and they emerged outside the waiting room of the Wizard hospital.

Without waiting for acknowledgement from the hospital staff, Mrs. Longbottom marched purposefully to the fourth floor. Outside the Janus Thickey ward she paused and looked meaningfully at Neville. "Straighten up. There's a smudge on your nose." Pulling a handkerchief out of her voluminous purse, she dabbed the corner on her tongue and proceeded to scrub the spot away. Neville tried to extricate himself to no avail. Finally when finished, she said, "Go on then."

He opened the door and was immediately greeted by one of his former DADA teachers. Gilderoy Lockhart was always smiling and asking people if they'd like his autograph. As he usually did, Neville hunched his shoulder and walked briskly past the beaming, blond-haired man.

Several beds down, he came to his mother. Alice was sitting up against her pillow playing with a banana peel. Almost shyly, he walked up to her bedside. "Hello, Mummy," he said meekly.

Her empty face turned to him and she squinted for a moment trying to find a memory of his face in her broken mind. Finally her eyes lit up and she made a happy grunting noise. Gleefully she showed him the banana peel to which he nodded and smiled, before leaning over and kissing her on the cheek.

Beside her bed, was Neville's father, Frank. Neville turned and sketched a wave. "'Lo, Dad." Frank made a motion for Neville to come closer, a serious look upon his face. Neville leaned down as if his father was going to impart a valuable family secret, when a glistening of spit formed on Frank's lips. It grew into a small bubble before popping lightly. Frank let out a howl of laughter, as did Alice next to him. She brayed with mirth and pointed towards him. Neville grinned sheepishly. There was not much laughter between his parents these days, and he couldn't begrudge them a small humour at his expense.

After the laughter had died, Neville turned to his grandmother where she sat knitting. "I need to use the toilet."

"Very well, I think you can find it yourself. Don't dawdle." The needles clacked together as she reached into her purse for a mint.

In the hallway, Neville looked down at the other wards and maneuvered to slowly inspect each one.

"Neville?" He jumped as the voice startled him from behind. A plump Healer with kind eyes regarded him questioningly. "Is there something you needed? You've visited so frequently, I'd imagine you know where everything is now."

Face to face with the witch, Neville was not quite as sure about his quest as he was this morning. Nevertheless, he said, "You know what happened at Hogwarts this year? About the teacher who was being impersonated?"

Her eyes darkened, but she nodded.

"He's here, isn't he? Crouch, I mean. The – they said he was kissed by a Dementor and his mind is gone, isn't that so?"

"Neville," she whispered. "I can't let you see him. You need to go back to your parents."

"It's because of him that my parents are here!" The Healer looked startled and peered around to make sure they were alone. Neville begged, "Please, I just want to get a look at him. I – I don't know what he really looks like. Please."

The Healer looked uncertain and then seemed to make up her mind. "Only for a moment," she whispered and placed a hand on his shoulder to guide him down the corridor. A smaller hallway jutted off to the left and she brought him there, where a single door stood in almost darkness. Shifting her eyes towards the main hall, she pulled out her wand and said, "_Alohomora_." The door swung open. Looking Neville in the eye, she said, "Only for a moment." Then with a sweet smile, she turned him towards the room.

There was little light in the room. A single bed stood in the middle, the figure in it laying flat with only a sheet thrown over for cover. Unsure of himself, Neville approached cautiously, as though the man lying there were to somehow rear up and curse him into oblivion. He swallowed hard as he came abreast of the body. The face had a hollow, sunken look to it, the eyes were closed, and a small rivulet of saliva escaped the corner of the mouth.

Neville just stood for a moment, quietly contemplating, before finding his voice.

"You tricked us," he said. But that wasn't right.

"You hurt my parents." He tensed up and gnawed on his lip. "You took them away from me." He continued on, gaining speed and volume. "Then you came into my school and tried to hurt one of my friends. And taunt me with the curse. And…" Neville's eyes filled with tears and his chest burned with pent-up rage. He surged forward and swung one chubby fist. It handed on the chest of the man with a thud. One if the body's arms jumped with the impact and slid off the edge of the bed, but Neville paid it no attention. He had found a release for years of repressed anger. Fists pounded on the chest as inarticulate cries escaped his lips.

Footsteps and voices grew louder behind him. "Hey, you! Boy, what are you doing there?"

Hands tried to pull him away, but he squirmed free. Reaching into his robes, he pulled out his wand, which was supposed to be in storage for the summer. He pointed it at Barty Crouch, Jr.'s body and screamed, "_AVADA KE…_"

A claw-like hand clamped over his mouth while another snatched the wand from his hand. He was yanked from the room and pushed into a corner of the hall. Gran's hard eyes bore down into him as she shook him severely by the shoulder with her free hand while the other held his wand just in front of him.

"What do you think you were doing!?" she screeched.

Neville's entire body began shaking. "He…he…he was…" He swallowed hard, intimidated by her unwavering stare. "He deceived us all year! He's one of those people that hurt my parents!"

"I know," she answered coldly. "But what did you think you'd accomplish?"

Neville sniffed and then steeled himself. "I wanted to make him pay. I want justice!"

Gran remained impassive for several moments, and then her body sagged. "As do I," she replied with quiet resignation. Then her previous strength returned when she said, "But justice is not for us. We have other duties. Duties to them." Her head nodded to the other end of the floor.

Gran's hand loosened on his shoulder, though it did not release. "You can't imagine how much I hated them. They took my boy, Neville, my sweet Frank! And that Black woman was so smug after they caught her." She shook her head sadly and then looked at him with a softness he'd never seen before. "Your parents knew what the risks were when they took the job. And they were luckier than some. Like the Potters. That poor boy lost his parents completely. You need to count your blessings."

Neville found it difficult to call his parents spending the rest of their days as blithering idiots a blessing, but he wisely held his tongue.

Gran continued, "Going around cursing people is going to get you nowhere but a life sentence at Azkaban. If you want to honour your parents' sacrifice you'll have to do it another way. What do you say to that, Neville?"

He blinked his eyes. The stuffed vulture on top of her head bobbed precariously. She seemed to be telling him something. "I want…"

"Yes?" Gran prodded.

"I want to fight You-Know…Voldemort." He cringed as he said the name. "I want to fight him, and his followers."

She smiled, sadly. It seemed the answer she wanted, but had been dreading. "Then, my boy, you will need to apply yourself, and for Merlin's sake, you'll need to get at least an Outstanding on your potions OWL next year." Neville's heart sunk. Snape would never give him an O. "Come along, Neville. We'll say goodbye to your parents and go home."

He followed but stopped to look into the almost empty room. The Healers had arranged him back into the peacefully reposed position. Barty Crouch, Jr. would remain a husk of a man for years and he would be a constant reminder of what Neville had to do.

"Neville!"

"Coming, Gran!"

End


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